Egyptian-Americans celebrate in Chicago

CHICAGO - Maggy Shamekh spoke to a celebratory crowd of fellowEgyptian-Americans on Saturday and harkened back to the 1980s hitsong by the Bangles, "Walk Like an Egyptian," to drive home herpride in how demonstrators in Egypt had forced strongman HosniMubarak from power.

"The entire world has learned to walk like an Egyptian," she saidthrough a megaphone to about 50 people outside the Egyptianconsulate on Chicago's iconic Michigan Avenue. Attendees cheered andwaved Egyptian flags in response. "It is the walk of freedom."

It also could be the walk of opportunity.

Ahmed Attidah, 30, said Mubarak's departure has made himseriously consider for the first time in his life moving back to hisancestral homeland.

"They need new minds and new blood," said Attidah, who was bornin Chicago but spent much of his childhood in Egypt. "And goingthere, you would also be building a nation. That's exciting."

Amira Shaker, 28, a Northwestern University law student fromCairo, said her father called her Friday morning from Cairo and "hetold me,'He just left, he just resigned.'" Her father held out thephone so she could hear the sounds of joy herself on the streets ofCairo.

"This is just a phenomenal day in our history. . . . I've neverknown any president other than Hosni Mubarak," she said. "For us,this is an end to the corruption and oppression that's riddled oureconomy for so long."

Social networking websites helped generate interest in theChicago rally on Friday, and also played a role in Egypt in drawingpeople onto Cairo's central Tahrir Square - the focal point of theweeks-long popular uprising.

Any emphasis on Internet technology would suit Attidah, who worksas an IT consultant in the Chicago area.

He happened to be in Cario on vacation when the mass movementtook shape. For several days, he even joined protesters in TahrirSquare, and he was there when pro-Mubarak forces rushed the crowdand injured scores of people.

Witnessing that violence and living under the regime for so manyyears as a child, Attidah explained, has helped him appreciate thegravity of recent events.

"We understand the price of freedom," he said.